Eight:
JC was pacing, and it was really beginning to irritate everyone else. The guys stayed clear of him as much as possible. Gina was attempting to hide because every time he spotted her he would pounce. “Is she here yet?” he kept asking. “Have you seen her?”
The fifth time the answer was still the same, and she was starting to get annoyed. “No, I haven’t. They aren’t even letting people in yet. Now go sit down or something. I’m getting motion sickness just being in the same room with you.” He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair, and sat down for almost half a minute before jumping up and pacing again. She hurried away while she had the chance and wandered around looking for someone to talk to.
She found Lance and Joey in a side room somewhere and sat down on the couch. Lance was on the phone and as soon as he had an audience, Joey started making faces and mocking him. She fought hard not to laugh and let Lance know, but she ended up losing that battle. Lance made a disgusted face and hung up. Before he could say anything, Gina cut him off with, “Now don’t get mad. He had to do something to alleviate the boredom. And don’t pout!”
“Why do you always take his side?”
“Aww, poor baby. I don’t always take his side,” she said as she gave him a hug. “But that really was boring.”
“Hey!”
“Hey!”
“Well it was,” Joey said as Gina nodded vigorously.
“Oh, I’ll show you boring,” Lance said, grabbing Gina and tickling her sides. She screamed and squirmed but couldn’t get away. She called to Joey for help and he agreed.
“Joey, help ME, not him!”
“Oh . . . um, no. This is too much fun.”
Chris came running in, his interest captured by the screaming. He stopped in the doorway. “Bonsai!” he yelled, jumping into the middle of the fray. With Lance and Joey momentarily distracted, Gina managed to crawl away. She sat on the floor and watched, laughing as the tickling match changed to a wrestling match. Justin stepped into the room, shook his head, and left again. Once the three men tired of writhing around on the floor with each other, a momentary silence descended on the room. Then Joey looked at Gina and got a gleam in his eye, prompting her to run from the room before he could catch her and begin the whole mess again. She caught up with Justin and fell into step beside him.
“Justin! Slow down.”
“This is slow.”
“But my legs are short!”
“Oh fine.”
“Heard from Brit lately?” she asked, knowing his answer already from the way he smiled when she mentioned his girlfriend’s name.
“Yeah. She just called about an hour ago. We didn’t get to talk long.”
“But you got to talk. That’s what’s important.”
“Yeah.”
They walked in silence for a while and ended up going into the guys’ dressing room. “What’s up with JC?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s acting very strange. I mean, he’s not nearly the annoying asshole I’ve come to know and tolerate.”
“Oh . . . I don’t know really. But I like this change. He’s more like he used to be, before Bobbie got a hold of him and made his life miserable.”
“Oh,” she said. “I never really believed y’all when you kept telling me he wasn’t that bad.”
“You never saw him before . . .”
“True.”
Sarah and Stacy stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the crowd. “Hey, I think I see somebody. It looks like they’re about to open the doors,” Stacy said, shaking Sarah’s arm until Sarah thought it might just fall off. It was about ten minutes before they actually got inside, then they had to pick their way through the crowd to Will-Call.
They were second in line when Sarah opened her purse to retrieve the envelope Gina had given her. She paled and tears built up in her eyes. “Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. I can’t believe this! It has to be here!”
“Sarah, what’s wrong.”
“It’s gone, Stace. I lost it. Now we can’t even go in because we sold our other tickets.”
“Are you sure? Come on, let’s go over here and look again,” Stacy said, trying very hard to stay calm.
After emptying Sarah’s purse and going through the contents twice, they had to admit that the envelope was indeed gone. They checked the ground outside and in the car and still had no luck. “I can’t believe this,” Sarah said, tears streaming down her face.
Stacy’s face hardened. “We’ll find a way in,” she said, determined not to miss this concert for anything in the world.
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